Kenyan MPs Vote To Raise Own Salaries Despite President’s Pleas
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Kenyan lawmakers, already among the best paid in the world, voted on Tuesday to increase their current salaries by nearly 40 percent, overturning a pay cut ordered by the national salaries commission earlier this year, reported Reuters, and ignoring a presidential request to free up cash to create jobs.
Kenyan lawmakers, already among the best paid in the world, voted on Tuesday to increase their current salaries by nearly 40 percent, overturning a pay cut ordered by the national salaries commission earlier this year, reported Reuters, and ignoring a presidential request to free up cash to create jobs.
The vote will see Kenyan MPs pay restored to an average of 851,000 shillings ($10,000) a month, up from around 532,000 shillings ($6,200); while in January, lawmakers had voted to give themselves a $107,000 send-off bonus each – before parliament had closed ahead of elections.
The sum is startling given that the average monthly wage in Kenya is just 6,498 shillings ($76). According to Reuters, Kenya’s public sector wage bill stands at 50 percent of annual government tax revenue, while the global benchmark is just about 35 percent.
Although Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta had agreed to cut his own annual salary by nearly half from $340,000 to $185,000, MPs said that neither the president nor the national salaries commission had the legal right to determine their salaries.
“They (the national salaries commission) have taken away our dignity and we must reclaim it,” said MP Jimmy Angwenyi during a parliamentary assembly.
[quote]”We are lawmakers and must be respected,” added parliamentarian Mithika Linturi as cited by AFP, saying the commission has “no authority to set our salaries.”[/quote]Many Kenyans however expressed outrage at the pay increase. According to the Associated Press, roughly 250 people carrying placards and banners marched through Nairobi’s city centre after the vote and staged a sit-in at the legislators’ entrance to parliament.
“Don’t like the pay? Quit!” one of the placards read, while demonstrators repeatedly shouted “thieves.”
[quote]Prominent businessman Chris Kirubi added on Twitter, “Did we vote in the wrong guys? This is nonsense! What work have they done in the last two months to deserve this?”[/quote]
But parliamentarian William Cheptumo denied accusations of greed.
“There have been a lot of accusations on Members of Parliament; we are not greedy at all. We are quoting a constitution. No one has powers to slash our pay without our authority,” Cheptumo said, according to CapitalFM News in Kenya.
“If the salaries team slashed our pay by following the law, we could not be complaining. But it was done illegally, that is why we are opposed to it. I support the motion,” added fellow MP Jakoyo Midiwo.
The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) said it would go to court seeking to challenge whether the MPs can set the new salaries.
[quote]”The supreme law (Constitution) ended the era when elected leaders could use their muscle to illegally determine their remuneration,” LSK chairman Eric Mutua said in a statement.[/quote]Related: Kenya’s Slow & Painful Path To Vision 2030: A Result Of Human Failure?
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An Economist study in 2010 found that Kenyan politicians were being paid more than 240 times the nation’s GDP per capita – the highest ratio in the world. Reuters reported that the wage hike will see MPs being paid more than 130 times the nation’s minimum wage.
